A pattern language for smart home applications

In this article we outline the details of a SmartHome ontology proposed as a representational model to assist the development process of sensorized environments. The SmartHome ontology is described in terms of its modules representing different aspects including physical and conceptual aspects of a smart environment. We propose the use of the Ontology Design Pattern (ODP) paradigm in order to modularize our proposed solution, while at the same time avoiding strong dependencies between the modules in order to manage the representational complexity of the ontology. The ODP paradigm and related methodologies enable incremental construction of ontologies by first creating and then linking small modules. Most modules (patterns) of the SmartHome ontology are inspired by, and aligned with, the Semantic Sensor Network (SSN) ontology, however with slightly different interlinks to address a number of shortcomings of SSN and provide further precision to the definition of entities which would otherwise be modelled in several ways and consequently lead to representational uncertainty.The result is a network of 10 modules, which can be considered as ODPs, together forming a pattern language for the smart home domain. The ODPs have been submitted to the ODP portal and are available online at stable URIs.

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